Likelihood to Recommend

Advanced Web Ranking

My business works with clients from a variety of outlets, with budgets ranging from six figures down to triple digits (not kidding). There's a TON of analytical software out there, so speaking as a guy who has worked with them all (or at least quite a few) if your client is on a budget – particularly a startup – AWR is a great program to use. They've been around for a while, the desktop version is pretty bug-free and updates in real-time, and it's budget conscious.

Bing Webmaster Tools

This is another option to Google or Moz and is still important to tracking stats and SEO. Without the integration that Microsoft has created for Bing Webmasters, there would be a soft spot in the market. I think that for users who are more suited to Microsoft, the UI of the backend will be comforting. For those of us with more design backgrounds, we will use it because we have to, not because we want to.

Global SEO

Multi-domain support

Integration with web analytics tools

Advanced Web Ranking

7.5

Bing Webmaster Tools

6.3

Pros

Advanced Web Ranking

It only costs $49/month, which is great for clients that are working with limited budgets (they're cost-conscious!)

Its ease of use – I've worked with plenty of cloud-based rank tracking programs before, and AWR was by far one of the cleanest and easiest to navigate. I could use it on my iPad and the user-touch interface was pretty seamless.

The info is updated in real-time. We were able to show our clients their live data while in meetings. It made us look good, and it made our clients feel better about the service they were paying for.

Cons

Advanced Web Ranking

The ability of the program to produce dashboards in web page format. While it can do this, it saves them out as HTML files on your hard drive or cloud server, which makes it super hard to share with others.

The cloud version is a bit more expensive, which offers the same tools as the desktop, which I found a little troublesome and it didn't make sense to me.

Their customer service was a little lacking. I had a couple of general questions and I was on hold for about 15 minutes...which isn't good when you're in the middle of a busy workday.

Alternatives Considered

Advanced Web Ranking

There's a ton of competition for AWR but in all honesty, if you're on a budget, I'd advise going with this one. It gets you pretty accurate results, updates their info in real time, and all for about $49/month base price. It's pretty good software for the money that you're paying

Bing Webmaster Tools

I think that Bing does a good job of being a competitive product in a space that has very basic and insanely complex products. While Bing isn't pretty, it gets the job done and also gets you the right tools in a simple and straight forward backend UI. The ability to place Bing ads, track SEO and see how your site is performing, all from one backend interface is awesome!

Return on Investment

Advanced Web Ranking

It stayed within our client's allotted budget (which drives more business our way down the road!)

Updated information in real-time assures our clients that they get the most accurate information possible, as quickly as possible.

It's been only slightly detrimental to my workflow (which is one little drawback of the program) sometimes I have to enlist the help of a keyword generator (because i find the one with the program a bit lacking)